Posted on 05/26/2015 5:55:03 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
A new play, World Factory, asks the audience to run a clothing factory in China – and even the creators have been surprised at how people have behaved.
The choices were stark: sack a third of our workforce or cut their wages by a third. After a short board meeting we cut their wages, assured they would survive and that, with a bit of cajoling, they would return to our sweatshop in Shenzhen after their two-week break.
But that was only the start. In Zoe Svendsen’s play World Factory at the Young Vic, the audience becomes the cast. Sixteen teams sit around factory desks playing out a carefully constructed game that requires you to run a clothing factory in China. How to deal with a troublemaker? How to dupe the buyers from ethical retail brands? What to do about the ever-present problem of clients that do not pay? Because the choices are binary they are rarely palatable. But what shocked me – and has surprised the theatre – is the capacity of perfectly decent, liberal hipsters on London’s south bank to become ruthless capitalists when seated at the boardroom table.
The classic problem presented by the game is one all managers face: short-term issues, usually involving cashflow, versus the long-term challenge of nurturing your workforce and your client base. Despite the fact that a public-address system was blaring out, in English and Chinese, that “your workforce is your vital asset” our assembled young professionals repeatedly had to be cajoled not to treat them like dirt....
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Very interesting.
Thanks for posting, 2DV.
"So, which one would you eat and which one would you throw overboard?"
“The aggregated flowchart reveals that every audience, on every night, veers towards money and away from ethics.”
We run the same project at Stanford Biz and I heard it’s been going straight for 12 years now. No matter how many times the lib professor tries to persuade us to “look into the human factor”, everyone in the class said “F that, factor in the production expenses and keep costs down”. ALL of my lib classmates were more capitalist than I was that’s why I hate these hypocrites.
The other way to turn a liberal into a capitalist is to let them run a marijuana store.
“ALL of my lib classmates were more capitalist than I was that’s why I hate these hypocrites..”
Liberals re capitalists until they can spend someone else’s money. It is only then that they become liberals.
Related (and very informative - watch it through till the end): http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind?language=en
You can find his referenced surveys site here: http://www.yourmorals.org
“But what shocked me – and has surprised the theatre – is the capacity of perfectly decent, liberal hipsters on London’s south bank to become ruthless capitalists when seated at the boardroom table.”
This clown has not been paying attention. All one has to do is look at the duplicist nature of the liberal mind. Rail against authority until you are the authority (politicians, government workers, professors, etc) then demand blind obedience. Rail against greed until you’ve got your hand on the carving knife and the biggest slice of the pie goes to you and yours. One needs only look at the Clintons to see the embodiment of “liberal principles” and the deranged pathology of their viewpoint. Back in the day these people were rightly called “snake oil salesmen” and would have been tarred and feathered as soon as they were seen for what they were. The problem lies in the fact that the rest of us have become too civilized.
Man, you are so right. One of them even went “the plight of the poor people isn’t right, we should donate more”.
ME: “Nah, F em’. If you’re so guilty of being rich, give me everything in your wallet and I’ll take care of your rich girl guilt”.
HER:”Absolutely not. Daddy gave me only $500 allowance to shop at Hollister”. (and she was serious)
The one business owner I knew who actually ran his business for the benefit of his employees and long-term success of his company was an actual Bircher. He was happy as long as he made a profit big enough to support him and his family in a surprisingly modest fashion. The company thrived and grew, his employees were all well paid and had great benefits.
His kids went to business school, ransacked the company, laid off people, cut salaries, maximized their short-term benefit and left the company a shell of what it had been. ...especially after the formerly happy, non-union workforce unionized.
Nothing decent about liberal hipsters.
What it comes down to is that self-interest is part of human nature, altruism is not.
Altruism is learned, voluntary, and often (but not always) counter to self-interest.
Capitalism takes into account that human nature is involved (self-interest) and it prospers.
Socialism (at least the “benevolent kind that run-of-the-mill Useful Idiots subscribe to) erroneously regards altruism as a component of human nature, and it predictably fails.
Self-interest is not the same as selfishness, and therefore should not be regarded as a negative or a vice.
Likewise, altruism is not always the same as generosity, and is not always a positive or constructive trait.
Naturally, the class argued. We'd been raised to believe in altruism as being a selfless sort of thing, but eventually I reluctantly had to agree with him.
While it might not be as obvious, altruism comes with a reward for the altruistic as well as for the one benefiting from the act of altruism, so altruism is not really a selfless thing at all, just less obviously self-benefiting than the usual self-centeredness we run with.
In all these years since high school, I've yet to come up with an example altruism that doesn't come with some sort of reward, or isn't in some way benefiting, for the one being altruistic.
He was a good teacher and it was an interesting class.
I’m thinking that teacher had read Ayn Rand. She had a lot of good things to say about altruism and other things. If only she had understood Christianity ... but she didn’t. It was her blind spot.
That is a great discussion. And I do agree...there is very often an underlying “self-interest”.
It was indeed her blind spot, but I think her characterization of altruism as an evil that results in entities such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
Too many people confuse helping others or generosity with altruism. They are not the same. One is morally mandated (altruism) the other (generosity and aid to others) is not.
I meant that I agreed with her characterization of altruism the way she defined it.
Fire 1/3. You’ll have 1/3 hate you but will no longer be in the shop. The 2/3 left will be grateful and keep their mouths shut. Harsh but true.
If you cut everyone’s salary 1/3 EVERYONE will be angry and ticked off. Production will suffer and morale will be shot.
Ayn, how’ve you been? You seem to have left out the concept of virtue.
Not really the point, in my opinion. As I explicitly stated, you don’t have to buy into her philosophy or work lock stock and barrel to see a valid point.
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